Victory
by My Beautiful Ending
Summary: "It seems as if she has always been here, holding this bowl above him in the near dark."


**AN: This is very much drawing from myth (Prose Edda, Poetic Edda), wikipedia, and other fanfics on this site involving these characters. I tried to take as much information as I could and sort of speak life into it. I hope I succeeded, and I hope you like it.**

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**Victory**

Her arms shake, struggling to hold the basin above her head. The wet splat of the poison drops in, and she quakes, her muscles aching and twitching. She cannot rest, not for a moment, and she is bone tired. Idunn does not venture with her apples to this forgotten place.

The poison drips again, the sound indicating that the bowl is nearly full. She lifts her head slowly, peering around the bowl to see Jörmungandr's large flat head. The serpent's dull eyes stare down at her, unseeing.

This time, her heart aches because of what she must do. "My love," she whispers, "I need to empty the bowl again."

Her husband opens his eyes and smiles his crooked smile, though she can see the grimace he tries to hide underneath. "Good, I was wondering when I would get a little excitement." His hair is plastered to his forehead by sweat, and his chest and face are speckled with burns from the venom.

Trickster god he may be, but her husband takes pains to guard what is left of her heart. The Aesir always wondered how she could care for such a capricious man. He had made her cry, true, but he also made her laugh.

Another drip falls into the bowl, and the venom sloshes dangerously. "I will be quick," she promises, lowering the bowl and staggering away, forcing her stiff legs into motion. She just has to reach the ditch and pour the venom out.

Forced to move quickly after so long, her feet trip on a loose rock by the ditch, and she falls to her knees. The venom splashes over the rim of the bowl and sears her fingers and knee. She bites her lips until they bleed to hold in her cries. She pours the burning liquid into the ditch and moves to rise, but she is thrown back down as the ground shakes. Her husband strains against his bonds and thrashes when the poison strikes his body. Ignoring her screaming fingers and cramping muscles, she hurries back to her post, standing above her husband and holding the bowl so he does not have to endure consistent pain.

She curses Skadi for placing Jörmungandr above them, the last straw in an already too harsh punishment. She curses all the gods for using their children to cause him pain.

She can hardly bear to look at the bonds holding her husband to the three rocks. They are iron now, but still in the shape of human entrails –her son's. As punishment for the death of Baldr, the gods turned her eldest son Váli into a wolf, who then tore his brother Narfi apart.

One son dead, the other one lost –her heart holds a heavy burden. But she knows her husband's is far worse. The serpent suspended above their heads is his son by the giantess Angrboda. Even before her husband's binding, the gods had exiled Jörmungandr to this place, sent Angrboda's daughter Hel to Niflheim, and bound her son Fenris the Wolf with a fetter and thrust a sword through his mouth.

_Why do they hurt us so?_ She wonders, trying to take as much of a respite while the bowl was the least heavy. _Why have they contrived against us in these ways?_

But she knows, in her heart. The gods were afraid of them –of him. Those who could see the future prophesied her husband would bring about Ragnarok –the twilight of the gods. All this, and for no other reason than the gods sensed a calamity, and thought her family to be the source. No one showed them pity, not Frigg, not Thor, not Freya, not even the kindly Lofn.

_Did it ever occur to them,_ she thinks, as the bowl grows heavier and heavier,_ that their actions might encourage misfortune against them? _

Of course not.

"They have forgotten us," she whispers, looking down into her husband's face. "They believe that they are safe."

He laughs, grinning fiercely up with her. "That is their mistake," he rasps.

"It is?"

"Yes," he says, "they have bound or imprisoned all my kin they think can hurt them. All except you."

She doesn't say it, but she wonders if this is just as much of a prison for her as it is for him.

"No," he shakes his head, watching her face, "they did not expect you to stay. They thought you'd leave me."

"I will never leave you," she whispers.

"I know," he says, and his eyes glow brightly. "They could not see you for who you are, love."

"And who am I?" she asks, lifting her eyes to the Midgard Serpent again as her arms spasm. She forgets, sometimes. It seems as if she has always been here, holding this bowl above him in the near dark. It is so painful to remember before, and nearly impossible to imagine anything after this torment –if it ever ends.

"You are Sigyn, Goddess of Loyalty, Incantation Fetter, Victory Bringer. My wife." He laughs. "They tried to make me a captive, but they allowed me just what I need to escape. We will be free, Sigyn. I will bring Ragnarok down on the Aesir and cause them as much pain as they have caused us."

"How?" she whispers, meeting his eyes, eager for hope.

"Through you," he whispers. "You will bring me victory."

The love in his sparkling eyes steadies her hands and soothes her muscles. The air she breathes is suddenly sweeter, and her aches are temporarily relieved. She is the goddess of loyalty, and her loyalty is to her husband, not to the gods. She is the Incantation Fetter. She is the Victory Bringer. She will bring victory to her husband and revenge for their children.

They will break free.


End file.
